Peace, Conflict, and Human Rights

Farah Pandith, CFR adjunct senior fellow and the first-ever State Department special representative to Muslim communities, put the January 7, 2015 massacre at the office of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo in context, explain the appeal of violent Islamic extremism, and offer a long-term strategy to combat extremist ideology.

Joshua Kurlantzick analyzes the effects of the Obama administration's pivot on Southeast Asia and its relation to the region's democratic regression. Kurlantzick recommends that the United States prioritize the countries of peninsular Southeast Asia and restore the emphasis on democracy and human rights in the region.

One hundred years ago this April, the Ottoman Empire began a brutal campaign of deporting and destroying its ethnic Armenian community, whom it accused of supporting Russia, a World War I enemy. More than a million Armenians died.

Sixty words that have defined the past thirteen years, forty maps that explain the Middle East, and four profiles of changemakers round out the year's Must Reads chosen by CFR.org’s editors. The following offer essential guides to 2014’s major developments.

The deterioration of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, disputes in Ukraine and the East and South China Seas, and the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea are among the top concerns of foreign policy experts, says CFR's Paul Stares.

Following last weeks near simultaneous release of torture reports in Brazil and the United States, Julia Sweig reflects in her column on the similarities and differences between the two documents, including the shared matter of impunity.

The intensification of the crisis in Iraq due to advances by the militant group the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is the top conflict prevention priority for U.S. policymakers in 2015, according to leading experts who took part in the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) seventh annual Preventive Priorities Survey.

The Center for Preventive Action's annual Preventive Priorities Survey (PPS) evaluates ongoing and potential conflicts based on their likelihood of occurring in the coming year and their impact on U.S. interests. The PPS aims to help the U.S. policymaking community prioritize competing conflict prevention and mitigation demands.

Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), joins David J. Scheffer, the secretary-general's special expert on UN assistance to the Khmer Rouge trials at the United Nations, to discuss the ICC’s policy and protocol in investigating and prosecuting sexual and gender-based crimes.

Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), joins David J. Scheffer, the secretary-general's special expert on UN assistance to the Khmer Rouge trials at the United Nations, to discuss the ICC’s policy and protocol in investigating and prosecuting sexual and gender-based crimes.

Fatou Bensouda, prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), joins David J. Scheffer, the secretary-general's special expert on UN assistance to the Khmer Rouge trials at the United Nations, to discuss the ICC’s policy and protocol in investigating and prosecuting sexual and gender-based crimes.

The German philosopher Martin Heidegger died in 1976, yet scholars are still plowing through his life’s work today -- some of it for the very first time. Indeed, few modern thinkers have been as productive: once published in their entirety, his complete works will comprise over 100 volumes.

For as long as the shah of Iran occupied the Peacock Throne, his relations with the United States depended on a mutually accepted falsehood. Neither side stood to gain from acknowledging that Washington’s favorite dictator owed his position to American skullduggery.

As civil war in Syria inches toward its four-year anniversary, the nation’s humanitarian catastrophe deepens. Some 7.6 million Syrians are now internally displaced, and another 3.3 million have fled to neighboring countries to avoid the complex three-way dogfight among Assad’s forces, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and Syrian rebels.

An independent jury has selected The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (Alfred A. Knopf) by Gary J. Bass as the 2014 winner of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Arthur Ross Book Award. The award identifies the best book published in 2013 on international affairs. Bass, a professor at Princeton University, will receive $15,000 and be honored at a CFR event in January.

2015 Annual Report

Learn more about CFR’s mission and its work over the past year in the 2015 Annual Report. The Annual Report spotlights new initiatives, high-profile events, and authoritative scholarship from CFR experts, and includes a message from CFR President Richard N. Haass.Read and download »